Master Skills, Master Anxiety: Teaching Your Child Self-Efficacy

The psychologist Albert Bandura believed the greatest gift we can give our children is self-efficacy. The quality that helps them feel like capable, competent, human beings. The feeling that they can find solutions to their problems, master new skills and achieve their goals, no matter how many set-backs they face along the way.

At the heart of self-efficacy is mastery, the feeling we get when we learn to do something new and do it well. Children who develop a strong sense of mastery are happier and experience less anxiety, so how do we support our kids as they develop this quality?

Support and reward skill building

When kids are very young they’re constantly skill building, and we’re always praising them for it. We tell them how clever they are to tie a shoelace or build a tower of blocks.

As kids get older we tend to take new skills for granted, and at school there’s often more focus on the negative side of not mastering new skills, or not mastering them when the school curriculum says they should.

Encourage activities that help your child build his skill-set, in and out of school. Praise him for his mastery as well as the results of it. Make it clear you value his determination and dedication, and not just because they resulted in a good grade or a trophy.

Achievement is a natural result of mastery but they’re not the same thing. As Edward Hallowell puts it in his book The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, “Mastery is a feeling. Achievement is a benchmark.”

Seek out skills your child admires and help him master them

Mastering a skill you admire is particularly effective at boosting confidence and self-belief. At seven years old, my son decided rock climbing was really cool. He thought the kids on the rock wall looked like Spiderman scaling the side of a tall building. So I enrolled him in a rock climbing program.

Find something challenging but achievable

My son was slightly nervous about heights, so rock climbing was a challenge for him, but he wasn’t so scared that it would prevent him from climbing, which would have created a sense of failure. Help your child find things she would love to do, but that will involve her overcoming some small fear or insecurity, and the feeling of mastery is multiplied.

Look for non-competitive challenges

Competitive sports can produce a feeling of mastery, but activities where the only objective is to improve on your own previous attempts are even better. Constantly creating a new ‘personal best’ leads to a feeling of consistent improvement and creates a strong sense of mastery.

My son noted which panel on the rock wall he climbed to on each attempt and always climbed a little higher next time. When he reached the top of the first one, he asked if he could try the other (harder) rock wall. He never noticed what the other climbers were doing.

Build your children’s sense of mastery slowly, day-by-day, and give them the gift of self-efficacy.

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Oh, to see your children become self-sufficient and confident in their lives. That is what every parent wishes for their children. My two boys, ages 3 and 5, are learning how to learn the skills needed to traverse their small planet of home and community. Each milestone is reached with great effort through much patience and repetition. One big lesson we have been learning in the home is how to treat each other respectfully and play kindly. “Sharing” is such a catch-all word. How simple to teach a child to “share.” What is more difficult is to help them learn the joy in sharing. The behavior is fine… the attitude is the blessing.

Praise is a huge motivator! My kids have more fun and find greater success when I praise them. Whether they’re learning a new math topic, cleaning their rooms or learning to control their temper, they respond best to praise.

As an example, my son gets frustrated easily when he’s playing video games and can’t pass a level. I remind him to take a break before he throws the remote. Although he doesn’t always remember, I praise him profusely when he pauses the game and walks away. The more frequently I praise him, the more often he takes breaks instead of exploding! He’s mastering emotional control one video game session at a time.

Chronic Fatigue. I share your journey, as I have been down that road! However, I will not have it any other way buseace I have learnt so much about myself and life! It was a hard and painful journey, but my destination was all worthwhile!We own our emotions, we choose our emotions! We let it stays when we want it to and we release it if it does not serve us. The above does not come naturally, buseace we have been taught to not to show our emotions!Remember, 99.9% of the population have the same issues. The more conscious you are, the more you will recognise them and you will go through the pain of learning and growing! No pain no gain! The gain definitely outweighs the pain!All the best!